As attorney Howard Hamlin on AMC's new hit series, "Better Call Saul" -- a spinoff of "Breaking Bad" -- Patrick Fabian gets to chew up the scenery. "It's a dream role," says the actor, who was born in Pittsburgh but now calls Los Angeles home. "The show...

Music
Nestor Torres: The flutist combines Latin, pop, R&B and jazz genres for a distinctly “Nouveau Latino” South Florida sound. A native of Puerto Rico, Torres’ professional career began amid the dance clubs of the New York City salsa...

Long before Hollywood became obsessed with superheroes, the studios looked to the publishing world for content and inspiration. That turned out to be the case this year when a number of books — novels and nonfiction — got turned into...

Please do not bother me anymore with scores of football games. It is very evident that football does not care about the fans. The recent blackout of the college playoffs on free TV attests to that. The NFL has monopolized the TV airwaves forever....

Dear Readers,
As we embark on a new year, I want to take a moment to thank you for reading and to look back at the highlights of 2014.
Last year, the Los Angeles Times continued its tradition of delivering agenda-setting coverage of local, state, regional, national and international news. Our reporters and editors held officials accountable and touched readers. Our recent “Product of Mexico” series demonstrated The Times' vital role in the American conversation.
Thanks to our digital...

Major League Soccer
Fabian Espindola, D.C. United's most influential attacker during this renaissance season at RFK Stadium, is facing a six-game suspension from MLS for shoving an assistant referee after the playoff finale last month, sources familiar with the case said Thursday.
Espindola shared the team lead in goals with 11 and was first in assists with nine during United's first-place campaign. A six-game ban, among the longest in league history for on-field behavior, would constitute about 18...

They were bank robbers, murderers, rum runners and moonshiners -- qualifications which made the Ashley Gang perfect fodder for the movies.
The gang flourished, if that's the word, in South Florida in the early 1900s. Between illegal and infamous escapades, they hid out in the Everglades for years.
But in November 1924, John Ashley, his girlfriend Laura Upthegrove, and other gang members met a violent end at the hands of the law on a bridge over Sebastian Inlet just north of Vero Beach.
Their tale was...

Fabian Photos

Time flies, and six years after an ill-advised advertising campaign by UCLA’s marketing department, the Bruins can say that they have ended the college football monopoly in Los Angeles.
And they have begun another: Theirs.
By the time the Bruins were done with USC on Saturday night at the Rose Bowl, they had a 38-20 victory and clear possession of the city after winning the third consecutive game in the rivalry.
The series can easily flip, but none among the Bruin-heavy crowd of 82,431 was...

Saturday night's Ohio State-Penn State game figures to be one of the top attractions in another big weekend of college football.
ABC will have it with Brad Nessler and former Nittany Lion quarterback Todd Blackledge in the booth and Holly Rowe on the sidelines.
Penn State product Matt Millen will again be on the West Coast working the Oregon State-Stanford game for ESPN2 with Bob Wischusen and ESPN's "A team" of Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit will have Ole Miss at LSU.
CBS's top team of Verne...

Insidious lobbyists and their manipulative skills are the target of Christoph Hochhaeusler's dense political thriller, "The Lies of the Victors." Although the film is too crammed with plot, which becomes unwieldy in the first half and could use some editorial tweaking, its themes gradually meld together as a hip newshound discovers he's been led a merry dance during an investigation of slush funds and toxic-waste disposal. Damning the culture of lobbyists, as well as the way truth is circumvented or...